The present invention relates to an electronic scalpel to cut organic tissues, adapted for surgical applications.
More particularly, as it will be better pointed out hereinafter, the invention relates to an electronic scalpel adapted to transfer to the manipulator an electric power and therefore energy adapted to break the bonds of the molecules forming the organic tissue to be cut, without sensibly raising the temperature of the adjacent tissues.
European patent EP 1087691 discloses an electronic scalpel operating at a frequency of 4 MHz which is particularly adapted to avoid necrotic effects on the cells adjacent to the area to be cut.
The wave form available at the manipulator according to the disclosure of said patent, has no harmonics, as this wave signal derives from a radio frequency circuit closed on a resonant load essentially consisting of the eddy capacity of one or more MOSFETs and the inductance of the radio frequency transformer.
Tests effected on cuts made with such a kind of electronic scalpel still highlighted the presence of some necrotic cells around the cut due to cell heating.
Additional studies carried out highlighted that the cells undergoing the cutting operation, are not subject to necrotic degenerations when the energy transferred to break the molecular bond of these cells is substantially equal to the energy holding together said molecular bond.
As a matter of fact whenever energy is transferred to a cellular tissue, this causes the tissue molecules to vibrate and the increase of kinetic energy is transformed into a temperature increase of said tissue.
When temperature of the cells is raised to about 50° C. or more, the cells necrotize and die.
Therefore it is extremely important to operate in such a way that the electronic scalpel carries out the cutting operation without producing heat in the surrounding tissue.
As pointed out above, the phenomenon of temperature increase does not occur when and only when the energy transferred to the tissue molecules is equal to the molecule bonding energy.
Indeed in this case the delivered energy is not used to increase the molecule kinetic energy, but only to break the bond joining the molecules to each other.
On the other hand the molecules forming a kind of organic tissue on which the surgical cut should be effected are not all of the same nature and therefore some of them, even in a lower quantity, are characterized by having a bonding energy different from the molecules of the main tissue.